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Wednesday, June 1, 2016

It's Junesploitation 2016!

Your eyeballs can't take it!
Happy #Junesploitation, everyone!

Throughout the month, this page will act as the central 'hub' for each themed day; that is, each of the days will be linked below as they happen so you can easily locate and click through to read the reviews for a given theme.

If you need a quick refresher on where to find titles or what each theme is, check out our handy Junesploitation primer.

We only do stuff like because we love these movies, so be sure to have fun! And contact your doctor if a rash develops. That's normal for Junesploitation.

23 comments:

The ultimate in endings that only make sense in movies (sort of) - "Sure...it's a hitherto unknown species that has evidently lived for centuries and should be studied by scientists - or at least locked away somewhere where it can't hurt anybody - but you take it home and hang it on your wall and we'll just hope you won't let it kill anyone again"

(And do you think Salva picked 23 years because he figured if he ever got caught....never mind)

It's always an excellent plan that if you discover something that could potentially obliterate THE ENTIRE WORLD you don’t destroy it, just hide it somewhere. “Yeah, no one will ever find that, I’ll sleep safe tonight.”

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951): Robert Wise took a crack at the themes which would soon get a definitive treatment in Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959). This would have been a far better movie if it was remade with 21st century CGI and the star power of someone like Keanu Reeves.

The quickest way to see a lot of footage from many of the best films is to find a DVD called The Deadliest Art. It's narrated by John Saxon from the Bruce Lee days and is basically a fight compilation with a lot of background info in between. It goes under several names and is quite scarce, so you might want to youtube first (prob terrible quality, though). It covers everything from early Shaw Bros to 80s HK heavy action.

From the early Shaw Bros catalogue, you can find many newer remasters on DVD (and BD it seems?). You already know about some, so I'll just skip to Chang Cheh. He is known as the most gruesome Shaw Bros. director, often using an escalating array of disturbing/hilarious kills. His opus is Five Element Ninja (AKA Chinese Super Ninja), which released surprisingly late in the game. It's maybe THE single Shaw Bros film to own, especially in high quality if you can find it! It's got plenty of running time, tons of fights, and a massive amount of creativity in staging the fights. On top of that, you get bright red paintblood and slimy red entrails with great frequency. English dub is also great, but only if you can preserve the OAR and find it in HQ. This film has been butchered several times over the years, so only get the Celestial editions.

Around this same time, samurai exploitation flicks were also being release, so check out The Razor, Baby Cart series, Lady Snowblood, etc..

Outside of the ever-present Asian scene, we also have some amazingly good indie-ish films being produced in Serbia and other cheap locations. The one to see is Undisputed III: Redemption. Instant classic of MA cinema, but it stays cheezy and funny at the same time. So quotable. If you track down the cast & crew's filmogs from Undisputed III, they will lead you to most of the modern stuff like the new Unisol movies.

I'm sure I've forgotten a ton, but this is still a good, easy blueprint to get up to speed. Enjoy!!

You could go with anything from a John Hughes movie to a Beach Party movie from the '60s. I recommend one of the '80s knock-off teen movies like The Last American Virginor Screwballs or its sequel, Loose Screws.